Here and Now
by rosabelle317
Summary: They deserved this moment.


**Here and Now**

**rosabelle**

Her hair reeked of smoke.

Ashley turned the shower as hot as she could stand and then stood under it for an hour. She let the water cascade down over her, washing and rewashing herself until her skin was pink from the scrubbing and the heat. It wasn't the first shower that she'd taken since the battle for Earth had ended, but it was the first where she'd had more than ten minutes for herself before she had to be somewhere.

Now they wouldn't reach KO-35 for twelve glorious hours, every one of which Ashley was determined to savor. Once they arrived, they would have only a day or so to unload their supplies and help the returning Karovans. Then it would be back to Earth, and the unending, overwhelming tasks that lay ahead of them to put things right again.

Ashley sighed as she wrapped her hair in a towel. What she wouldn't give for a vacation. She'd been going and going without truly stopping since the day that Tanya had given her a Turbo key, and things showed no signs of slowing down now.

Someday, she thought wistfully, as she began to dress. Someday, she would have time for a vacation again. Someday, she would be able to go out in public again without being recognized. Someday...

She wore pajamas that she'd brought from home: a yellow camisole and a pair of yellow and gray striped shorts. Hair still wrapped, she grabbed a brush and left the bathroom. She appreciated the convenience of having her own bathroom on the Megaship, but it was too small to maneuver in comfortably.

In her doorway, she paused. "Andros?"

"Hey." He sat cross-legged on her bed, fiddling with his locket. "Should I have waited outside?"

Ashley shook her head. "I was afraid I was never going to get a chance to see you." She settled herself on her bunk and unwrapped her hair. "Where's Karone?" Without giving him a chance to answer, she wrinkled her nose and added, "My hair smells terrible."

"It'll pass," Andros said. He watched her brush her hair out before he answered. "Karone's with Cassie. She's learning about Earth music."

Ashley laughed at that. "Cassie will have her singing by the time we land."

Andros didn't respond. Ashley listened to the clink of metal on metal as he slid his locket back and forth on its chain, then sighed and set her brush down. "Hey," she said, touching his shoulder. "She's gonna be okay."

"Right."

"She's okay," Ashley repeated, and bit her lip. She owed him an apology. "We were wrong about her."

"No," Andros said heavily. "You guys were right. She didn't know me. There was no getting through to her. She was fighting to the death."

He closed his eyes, fist clenching protectively over his locket.

"Hey." Ashley reached out, laying her hand over his. "Tell me what happened?"

It had been days since the battle had ended, but they'd all been pulled in twelve different directions at once since the wave had hit Angel Grove. They'd hardly had time to eat, much less time for him to tell her what had happened on the Dark Fortress. Now, though, as seconds stretched into a minute, then longer, and still he just sat there, she realized that maybe for him the distractions hadn't been unwelcome.

At last, he spoke.

"I killed her," he said. "I didn't mean to."

"Oh," Ashley said weakly.

She hadn't expected that. She'd thought—there hadn't really been time to think. First, she'd just been relieved that he was alive. Then she'd barely processed that he was carrying his sister and what that meant before Karone was sitting up again, alive and well. And _then_… there had just been no _time._

Andros leaned forward, face in his hands.

"She was trying to kill me," he said, speaking to the floor. "I just wanted to block her, but then her magic rebounded at her, and…"

He shook his head.

"I didn't mean to," he repeated, his voice cracking.

"I know." Ashley squeezed his shoulder. "I'm so sorry."

"I spent my whole life trying to _find_ her."

"You did find her." Ashley had no idea if she was saying the right thing or not, but she had to say _something._ "And… she _is_ okay now."

"I didn't know that then," he said. He sat up, running his hands through his hair. "After I—after Zordon was gone, Ecliptor just vanished, and it was just me and her."

Ashley remembered the look on his face as he'd carried Karone off of the Dark Fortress and swallowed, imagining what those long, lonely minutes must have been like for him, sitting alone with her and knowing that his years spent searching had ended like _this_...

"Hey," she whispered, blinking away her own tears when she heard him sniff. "Come here."

His hug crushed her to his chest. Ashley squeezed him back just as hard. "I'm sorry you had to do that alone."

She felt him nod.

"We should've been together."

They'd all worked so hard to become a team; it wasn't right that he'd spent their last battle fighting alone after all they'd gone through together. Ashley heard him sigh.

"There was no other way," Andros said softly in her ear. "Earth needed you guys where you were."

Ashley nodded into his shoulder.

"I wish you could've been there too." It was the sort of admission he was normally too reserved to make, and it made her smile despite how her heart hurt.

"Well… I'm here now," she said. "If you want to talk about it."

Andros shook his head. He seemed to welcome the comfort, though, because he scooted over to make room for them to sit side by side with their backs against her pillows. Ashley settled herself against him, her hip touching his.

This was at once familiar and yet rather more intimate than they were used to, but Andros, always the more reserved one, seemed content enough to hold her, and Ashley figured they'd more than earned this moment. She leaned her head against his shoulder, smiling faintly when the ends of his hair touched her cheek. She blew them out of her way, earning herself a startled laugh.

"I like your hair," she said, twining a few strands around her finger. "You had it down like this when we met."

"Did I," he said, reluctantly amused.

"Yeah." She tugged playfully a few times, then bit her lip.

"What?" he said.

"No," she said. "I'm supposed to be cheering you up."

"Ash?"

She sighed. "That was the scariest day of my life, that's all."

"What happened?"

Frowning, Ashley tilted her head back to look up at him. "I thought you knew."

"Not everything," he said.

"It was awful."

When she shivered, Andros reached down to flip the blanket over her legs. Ashley smiled faintly. "Silly," she whispered. "I'm not cold."

He shrugged.

"We'd just lost both of our zords," she told him. "I thought that was as bad as things could get. And then—" She shook her head. "I don't know how Divatox found us, but she did and there were just so many of them. We tried to fight them outside, but we had to retreat back inside the Power Chamber."

It was funny. She'd hardly thought about the Power Chamber in months—everything had happened so fast once they'd gotten their Astromorphers, and besides, it had all worked out in the end—but as she tried to describe it now for Andros, she remembered clear as day how the floor had trembled beneath her feet as the Pirahnatrons beat down the doors, and her skin grew clammy as the memory assaulted her.

"Alpha said he would try to teleport us out, but we couldn't just leave him there." She pressed her lips together, searching for the words to explain how it had felt, those moments that she'd sat inside knowing there was nothing that she could do besides hold Cassie's hands and wait. "Then they broke through the doors, and the roof collapsed… We were still fighting when the bombs went off."

"You guys were _inside_?" It was strangely validating to hear Andros sound horrified.

"Yeah." Ashley swallowed hard. "Our suits protected us from the worst of it, but then our powers were gone and we were sitting ducks out there in the debris. If Dark Specter hadn't sent that messenger from the Cimmerian Planet, Divatox would've found us."

Andros's hand settled in her hair when she sniffled, gentle and reassuring.

"The shuttle was Justin's idea," she said, scrubbing at her cheeks with the heel of her palm. "And then there wasn't even time to say goodbye to him, or anyone else. Everything just happened so fast, by the time we had time to really think about what we were doing we were already in space."

"You were so brave," Andros said quietly.

Ashley shook her head. "We had to go."

"You were brave," he said. "All of you, and I was…"

She laughed shakily.

"I was," he said, still stroking her hair. "I almost let Astronema capture you after everything you'd been through."

"You didn't."

"Almost." Andros sighed. "Alpha and DECA had to convince me." Unexpectedly, she saw a smile tug at his lips. "I was so angry she'd brought you guys onboard."

"That was her?"

"Who'd you think it was?"

"I don't know." Ashley shrugged. "I guess I thought it had something to do with Zordon's black box that Alpha had."

He shook his head.

"Oh," Ashley said. "I should say thank you."

"Me too." He stared down at his lap. "I didn't know then that Zhane would ever wake up, and you guys… having you around, it was…"

"We needed you too." Ashley nudged him with her shoulder. "We really didn't know anything about space."

He looked at her sheepishly, and she frowned. "What?"

"I didn't either," he confessed. "When I first left KO-35. Not really."

"What?" she said again, laughing. "What happened to having grown up with skyports and spaceships everywhere?"

"No, we had those," he said. "But Zhane and I… we spent most of our time on KO-35."

"Oh," she said, poking his chest. "So _you_ were a planetary Ranger once."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I was."

Until he didn't have a planet anymore. The thought sobered her, and she hugged him again. "I hate thinking of you alone for all that time."

"It was…" He just shook his head. That this was where words failed him after everything was telling enough. "I couldn't do it again."

"You won't have to." Ashley bit her lip. "Look… I know you want to stay on KO-35."

He sighed.

"No," she said, though it pained her. "I understand. I do. Just—whatever you decide, you won't be alone. That's all."

"Ash."

He turned so that he faced her and lifted a hand to her face, carefully tucking a strand of damp hair behind her ear. For a moment, he just watched her as she rested her cheek against the palm of his hand, then he took a deep breath. "There was something I wanted to do before," Andros said quietly. "Can I?"

"Yeah," she murmured, leaning into his touch. "You can kiss me."

She'd scarcely gotten the words out before his mouth covered hers, warm and gentle. It was a brief, careful kiss, and then he drew back to search her face.

"That—" Ashley pressed her lips together, smiling. "What took you so long?"

"I wasn't sure I'd be able to leave you," he admitted. "If I did before. Then I left, and I wished I had."

So had she.

"Well," she breathed, leaning closer so that her lips just brushed his. "We've got all the time in the world now."

"All the time in the universe," Andros said.

"Mm." She couldn't tell if he was agreeing with her or arguing the point.

It wasn't true, though.

It was profoundly unfair, she thought, leaning into him as he kissed her again. Struck by a need to have him as close to her as she could, she pressed her mouth hard to his. She felt him startle against her and started to pull away, but he made a quiet sound deep in his throat and caught her by the back of the head, holding her to him.

His tongue touched hers and Ashley heard herself moan into his mouth, feeling him shudder in response.

When the kiss ended, she held two fistfuls of his shirt. "That was—" Ashley giggled at him breathlessly. "Have you ever kissed anyone before?"

"Am I doing it wrong?" he asked, though his smirk suggested he knew better.

Ashley touched her lips with the back of her finger. "I think you're getting the hang of it, yeah."

One of the straps of her camisole had slipped down her shoulder. Andros reached out and slid it back into place. Ashley shivered as his touch moved up her arm and reached to cover his fingers with hers, holding his hand against her shoulder.

"Ash?" Now he did sound uncertain, as she sat there and stared at him.

"Sorry." Ashley let her hand drop and he trailed his fingertips slowly back down her arm. For some reason she hadn't expected him to feel so warm. "I just had this crazy thought."

Andros watched her, his eyes dark.

"I was thinking about how we could've died," she said. "When the wave came, I thought that's what was happening at first."

"I—"

She touched her fingers to his lips. "Let me finish?" and he nodded, relenting.

"Then, after, I thought you weren't coming back." She shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant. I'm not upset with you. Just... anything could happen, and I was wrong before."

She leaned in to kiss him. "We don't have all the time in the world, and I… I think we should make the most of ours."

She watched him struggle with himself. Her face felt hot and she felt the thud of her own heartbeat in her ears, seeing his expression mirror the wanting that she was sure showed on her own face.

"Ash," he said, his voice low. "I…"

"What do you think?" she murmured against his lips. "Is that too crazy?"

He touched her arm again, more deliberately than before, and then she felt him relax, accepting, she hoped, that they deserved this moment.

"No," Andros whispered at last. "I—I don't think so."

"Good," she breathed, and drew him to her by the neck of his shirt.


End file.
